It's been a several days since my last sketch and it looks like it will be a few more. Since that last sketch, I've been having trouble getting anything I was working on this weekend to turn out even partially resembling what I hoped it would. There's almost always a bit of a disappointment factor with any given piece but that factor has been on steroids lately and is easily ten times worse than it usually is. I've been getting this feeling early enough in the sketch stage that there's really nothing to scan and it prevents me from going any further.

Rather than fight that feeling, I've swtiched efforts into reorganizing my personal art file. It's been somewhat organized though I haven't kept up with placing the newer art into their proper folders once it has been uploaded for perhaps two years. While I have taken care of that in the past couple of days, I'm now into a heavy reorganizing of the regular folders. Just a bit ago, I finished getting the Heather and Placid First Date series of sketches into their proper order by partially renaming the files. This is only the first of such efforts, the biggest being the Dragon Lady folder and its numerous sketch "storylines" that I have to attempt to organize for the first time. While most of the folders have been a snap, it's all tough gong until I'm finished which will probably take days. Until then, I probably won't have anything new to show unless. in a highly unlikely event, I come across some hidden treasure that hasn't been uploaded before.

2016 has claimed yet another celebrity as Jerry Doyle, radio talk show host and Babylon 5's security chief, Mr. Girabaldi, joins Anton Yelchin, David Bowie, Prince, Alan Young and many others who have passed away in the previous seven months. I was never fortunate enough to meet Mr. Doyle at a convention and hadn't been able to hear his radio program for years but I will miss his Facebook posts and some of the wry, sly and funny comments he would add while sharing a link to some interesting or political article. At least I can still revist his B5 years thanks to the DVDs. Seriously 2016, what the hell is wrong with you anyway?

In more personally better news, and I sure can use some, given all of the other tedious crap I've been having to deal with, my knee has bounced back from the popping incident that happened over a week ago. Before my knee popped, I had pain just below the joint that would get worse while I was sitting. Since I do a lot of computer work, I do a lot of sitting, so there was a lot of pain - not as much as immediately after the knee popped but it was definitely there and having an effect on how I would walk. I guess keeping the knee wrapped in Ace bandages and icing it several times, plus having to get around on my own for virtually everything, has cleared up the problem and my knee feels better than it has for several weeks.

I've also been at work on my latest illustration. Because I had to put it on the light table to fix a few things, I've ended up shading it like the "Domestic Violence" piece but thankfully not anywhere near the detai. It's about 2/3rds of the way done but it might be a couple of days yet to finish it as life circumstances keep playing havoc with my drawing schedule. I'd like to keep whatever momentum I can going because I might have to resort to commissions at some point as several unexpected charges and expenses keep popping up to play havoc with my budget and I'm limited in my capabilty of earning much more at work.

This must be my weekend for shit to happen. First, I get a hole blown in my radiator, then while running errands this afternoon, a misstep off a curb led to a loud "POP!" and piercing pain from my right knee. Thankfully I had a shopping cart so I was able to hold onto it and make it to my car. Unfortunately, I had to leave it in the parking lot right where it was. Getting everything out of my car and into the house was an excrutiating logistical nightmare. I tried laying down for a while and was able to get comfortable but unable to stay that way. I was just too awake to lay down yet despite having a rather brief evening of sleep the night before and too early a morning thanks to party neighbors at 4:30 AM.

I've wrapped the knee and the assistance of a cane that my grandmother used to use, I'm able to make my way in a fashion around my house, which fortunately isn't very large. I do hope I never have to get to the bathroom in a hurry though.

I'm really hoping this will be a brief inconvenience as I was hoping to see the new Star Trek next weekend, not to mention having to deal with some of the other more mundane chores and needs. I didn't get to finish my intended shopping today.

I seem to be one of those people that is capable of taking apparently unrelated bits of information and putting them together to figure something out that I probably shouldn't be capable of. At work people marvel at this and wish they could do it too. If I bother to reply, I usually respond that they shouldn't wish for such a thing. For starters, if you can do it and others around you can't, then they usually come to do to figure things out for them often without even trying themselves, at times despite having the way to do it explained to them several times.

It's also not good in another respect. Yesterday, I came across a submission that led me to the pages of someone I used to know. Potentionally this means I could contact them again but I learned the hard way through the message system on Facebook that you can't ever go back. In this particular case, I promised myself I'd never bother with this relationship again. However, finding the pages has led to another effect I'm still having trouble shaking.

Because the circumstances of my life have changed so drastically from the days of that old friendship, it feels like another lifetime and leaves me with the impression that I've lived for centuries instead of years. I know I'm getting old so I don't really need to feel any older than I already do. It makes me wonder why anyone would want to live forever.

Did any of you hear about Matt Smith expressing intrest in returning to play The Doctor again? If so, what are your thoughts about the possibility? Facebook seemed kind of divided on the matter. I have some personal thoughts myself but in the interests of not biasing someone's opinion, I'll only reveal them if asked and maybe after a few responses.

Just to let anyone know, any focused interest I have in Doctor Who started just before the time of the Day of the Doctor 50th anniversary story. I'd actually watched some Doctor Who back when the local PBS station would run some of the old stories late, late, late at night. I found them quirky and sometimes confusing but put that to the lateness of the hour. I was also unfamiliar with the lore of Doctor Who and actually started with several of Peter Davison's stories but couldn't manage to keep watching to see if they ever showed any of Colin Baker's stories.

A few years later, I caught snippets of some of the new Doctor Who stories with David Tennant but always caught them in mid story so I never sat through any of those though I did recognize the Daleks, but mostly from pop culture references than actually seeing them on Doctor Who itself. A few years later (or ago from this point) I found copy of The End of Time in a Best Buy blu-ray bargain bin and got hooked from there. A sale on BBC blu-rays got me a couple of Matt Smith's seasons and The Waters of Mars special in the next couple of months. Since that time, I've acquired everything modern since Eccleston's season to Capaldi, a special collection of one story from each of the eleven Doctors, and a few DVD story collections from throughout the first five Doctors. With the help of checkout from the local library I've managed to see even more of the classic Doctor Who with the Happiness Patrol featuring Sylvester McCoy being the latest.

And in case anyone is wondering at this point, yes, I'm procrastinating on tackling that 8 character sketch I mentioned previously.

I was looking through Facebook the other day when I noticed posts from John deLancie and Ron Perlman right next to one another. Recalling Mr. Perlman's voiceover work in various films and shows, I had the idea that it might be interesting to see him do a voice of Discord's father/uncle/brother/cousin/some other relation on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Just a random, sudden idea I had the other day that re-occured to me while I was waiting to have the radiator on my car replaced earlier today.

Because of the radiator issue, I haven't made much progress on my latest sketch which is rather complicated as it involves eight characters, four of them children and all of the troubles that their proportions bring.

-ever see an image for a YCH auction that has enough detail to convey what the artist was aiming for originally and wish that the artist would have just finished the picture instead of auctioning off to include the highest bidder's character isntead?

My entire weekend's worth of trying to clear my submissions backlog wiped out in one night by two art floods. Thanks for nothing guys. Sometimes I wish I had enough of a life I could just give up on this fur thing and not look back.

I finally recovered control of my account after several days. Despite not seeing anyone with the fursona of a beaver, a lot of those I watch have certainly been as busy as the proverbial paddle-tailed mammal uploading like mad. I was already buried in submissions before everything went down. Now the count is back to the highest point its been since it started building up after a couple of floods a couple of months ago buried me in the first place. And now I have to go deal with work instead of trying to make a dent. Fun times ahead.

Well, wasn't that inconvenient and just a bit unpleasant? Not that it forced me out that thing called a 'door' into what's known to some as the 'outside world'. I have this other thing called a 'job' and a few forays to replenish stocks and supplies, plus other sundry activites here and there to accomplish that, sometimes more than I'd like for it to happen.

In this whole recent mess, I only had one new submission get zapped. Not bad considering how much could have gone away but it comes during a time when I'm trying to deal with a great many issues about my work. I've been having enough problems with creating art as it is let alone sharing it. I don't know that I'll reupload the last submission. There certainly seems to be more than enough being added back by others to swell that notification to the level it was at a couple of days ago before I left for that 'job' thing so I doubt it'll be missed anyway.

Maybe when the dust settles, I'll consider it but don't anyone hold their breath. For those of you who have accounts on Inkbunny, the new submission is still up over there. For those who use Weasyl, sorry but I haven't been there in a while, let alone uploaded anything.

As for anything new, I had some ideas and concepts last night that because of a few unusual circumstances I had more absolutely free time that I could have focused on sketching. However, dozing a bit and getting further along in the novel I'm currently reading proved to be far more compelling, continuing the trend I've been seeing for a some time now while it feels like an increasingly diminishing part of myself is alarmed by that apathy towards my work in favor of the work of others.

...nothing compares to seeing a movie in it's originally intended exhibition format, namely the theater. For the past couple of years, I've been lucky to either see several older films once again on the silver screen or see some films for the very first time. In 2014 for three consecutive Tuesdays in August, I was able to see the first three Indiana Jones films in better theaters than when I originally saw them in the 80's.

Last year, I had the great fortune of seeing another Steven Speilberg classic on its 40th annniversary, Jaws. Despite seeing this film dozens of times on VHS, DVD and blu-ray, I still jumped at the parts that were intended to be jumped at. I also got to see the cult classic, Flash Gordon, for the first time ever. The film print might not have been as crisp and pristine as my blu-ray but the size of the screen and speakers pumping out the soundtrack by Queen were a spectacle all their own and one I'm so glad I didn't miss. I was actually looking for a theater showing the Bill Condon/Ian McKellen film Mr. Holmes when I found out about Flash Gordon just a few days before it was being shown.

This year, I've been able to see cult animation classic, The Last Unicorn, a couple of weeks ago. Like Flash Gordon, I was checking for other films (more on that in a sec) when I found out The Last Unicorn would be showing that weekend. I've seen the movie a few dozen times but it was still worth it for one time in theater. And earlier today, I got to see Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It was Disney's English dubbed version with Patrick Stewart, Alison Lohman and Shia LeBeouf but not having to read subtitles enabled me to focus on the gorgeous backgrounds, unique aircraft designs, and insects of the Toxic Jungle like the enormous Ohm. Nausicaa was just the beginning of a retrospective on the entire run of Studio Ghibli. I'm hoping to make it to Princess Mononoke next weekend and a few others but I'm definitely setting my sights on seeing one of my all-time Miyazaki favorites, Porco Rosso, on the big screen when its turn comes up next month.

If I count these and 3D and special showings of films like The Lion King, Jurassic Park, Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc. and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (but none of the rest. C'mon Disney!), then I've had plenty of good fortune seeing older movies in their original cinematic venue and hope to see several more in the future.

I seem to be suffering once again from the usual "malady" that I've been dealing with for quite a while now. Having finished my most recent image, I find myself in a creative limbo of sorts. I have ideas, new ones in fact, and a large host of old ones going back several years but none of them are standing out demanding to be drawn now. It's a bit like a public speaker asking for feedback from a crowd but everyone speaks at the same volume at the same time.

There are a few that do "speak" louder but they're larger projects I don't feel up to tackling right now for creative or technical reasons. I usually break this stalemate by finding an old, old idea that no one has seen before, which is why I finally resketched Allie and KingSnake once again after so many years. I am sort of leaning toward working on an old comic idea but am wavering on it because I don't have a clear idea how I want to redo the visual storytelling to have the action of the story make more sense.

It's a problem like this that usually leads me back to something simple like redoing a pinup. Perhaps that will be the case this time but I haven't been swayed by any of the previous sketches I've been looking through so far. It's been my experience that I'll have to break this problem on my own or simply ignore it and read a book for a while instead.

After going back through the majority of the sketches I've done over the past several years, I've been thinking about a few things and come to a few conclusions.

1. If I learned how to draw, then just about anyone can if they study and practice. It might take more practice and perseverance for some than for others but at some point it does eventually click. I must have practiced and persevered quite a lot. In the days before I paid for my own education, people told me I was a good artist. I wasn't though. I had some success copying photographs. I was a good copier. Now I call myself a fair artist but at least I have my own ideas.

2. Todd has become his own character. Though I'm leaving up images where he does represent me, he's no longer my fursona. I will no longer have a personal representation in any work I do.

3. For years, I've kept a list of other peoples' original characters in the fandom that I wanted to do fan art of. I've only managed to check off a few of them over those years. I'll no longer be keeping such a list nor will I draw other peoples' fandom characters outside of one, maybe two. I expended energy in the past that I should have put to better use on my own characters. I'll still be doing work of characters like Maleficent and the tauntauns I've come up with when I get good ideas for them.

4. Speaking of tauntauns, I'll be expanding the tauntaun family of characters to include Yervaa's mother, aunt, and a sister to join Yervaa and Revaal if I manage to get around to sketching things with them.

5. It's highly unlikely I will ever get into digital art or coloring. Perhaps if it had come along when I was younger, I'd have more energy to try more often than I have. Better equipment and software might change this but those won't be happening in the forseeable future. Being that I'm slow with traditinal coloring, I'm just going to make do with my usual graphite sketches.

6. Unless something changes, I won't be sorting my work into folders. My online time is already taken up trying to catch up with numerous image floods/dumps as it is. If you really need folders, I did so over on Inkbunny.

7. No Patreon and I'm 99% certain that will ever change. I hold the 1% because only a few things are every absolutely certain. Still, it's a pretty safe bet I wouldn't consider it for a variety of reasons.

Hm, lots of won'ts but there is the possibility of more tauntauns so it's not all bad, right?

After re-reading my journal of April 9th ( http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7499476/ ), I realize that it can be interpreted that I blame people for my current artistic woes. I don't blame anyone except the idiot I see in the mirror while shaving in the morning. I had dreams and hopes that I would have all kinds of creative friends and allies to share ideas with or sound them off of. It felt like I had that for a while but it all somehow faded away. Instead, I have one hopeful that hasn't had much luck because of that aforementioned idiot in the mirror who can't seem to get his act back together these days.

Just stating for the record in case I happened to ruffle any feathers I don't know about.

It's acually more of an example, a magnificent and stunning one at that, of one of the points I'm sure I failed to make a few days ago.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19448043/

Amazing, isn't it? On my best decade, I couldn't produce anything like this. And people used to think I went nearly insane with backgrounds and textures when I was in grade and junior high schools. I sure wish I was capable of pulling off something even a tenth (that's 1/10th) as good as this. I know these sites aren't a competition (or I'd be laughed right off of it) but I sure don't need to be putting up sucky crap when there's work like this to be found here.

Because of a couple of pictures/ideas/notions I've had recently (this one: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/19496529 and another I've not managed to sketch for a character of mine that's turned 30 actual years old this year) I've been going back through some older than old pre-Internet work. After all of the years I've put into this fur art thing, I have a lot of crap to go through. But it's not just about going through reams of sketches. There are a lot of memories involved too - mostly of people I have very little to absolutely no contact with these days, of unrealized dreams, of failed aspirations.

It's not been a fun filled romp down memory lane but I think it has helped me to realize just how I feel and approach (or don't as the case has been at times and is again recently) my art. In the pre-Internet days, I wasn't aware too many people were into what's become known as 'furry' these days. Almost everyone I did know of was drawing characters ala Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse and their respective friends and rivals and calling them "funny animals" and their behavior was fairly cartoony as well. I craved something a bit more serious though, a bit more like real life where the characters had to wear pants as well as shirts to cover anatomical features that were absent in "funny animals", which would inevitably lead to furry porn. In those days, I knew of no other sources so I had to make my own and pretty much keep it to myself since I knew no one else who was even remotely into this sort of thing.

After a few years, I became aware of a few publications in the much stronger independent comics market of the late 80's and early 90's. However, in the days before e-mail, newsgroups (remember those?) and other forums, you had to write a snail mail letter. A letter that would be pretty much ignored by the publishers or creators who were busy doing their thing and unable or unwilling to answer the questions of some aspiring neophyte with more dreams than sense or knowledge.

When I finally discovered the internet and that others were into anthropomorphics that went beyond the "funny animal" level (like on Furnation for anyone who recalls that), I felt a whole big, wide world was open to me and that I was going to become a huge part of it. I'd have circles of artistic friends to bounce ideas off of, that would inspire me and I could inspire in return. I felt like I had small tastes of such things but it was like a Cold Stone sample spoon when I wanted the Gotta Have It size.

Time came and went as did most of the people I knew. I persevered in my perhaps ridiculous notions that I'd still make a sizeable contribution to the fandom. Like time and most of the people, technology and fandom tastes passed me by and I've never managed to catch up despite a few feeble, fruitless attempts to do so.

Somewhere along the line something snapped - just broke somewhere inside - and my dreams and aspriations slowly started to melt or fade away. There were other things to do with my time like spending a great deal of March watching the original run of The X-Files on blu-ray. I started reading novels again after a decade of not doing so because I needed the time to draw and post to try to build up some of that circle of friends I had dreamed of. Sometimes I'd rather just sit listening to music and doing nothing else in particular.

The lives of my characters now often play out in my head but don't make it to paper. Sometimes they fight for the right to do so, mostly among each other in the times I do feel like trying to draw and nothing comes out of it. When something does manage to bubble to the surface, it feels incomplete. I often end up adding touches with the computer. It's probably horribly old-fashioned of me but I used to get what pride I felt about my work out of holding a piece I'd just finished (before spotting all of the flaws) knowing it was done. I can't seem to do that any more especially with the comics. I need the computer to view the more finished version. Trust me, even a printout isn't the same as holding the completed original.

Unlike the old days, I don't even need draw anything to see new fur work. I simply have to pop on here to deal with the backlog of submissions here or on the couple of other sites where I have accounts and others are pumping out art like image-making robots (seriously, how do some of you do more than one or two pieces a day and up to a dozen?). Sure, they don't draw sharks like I would (ear fins and hair? what's up with that?) but they're drawing shark-like characters which means I don't have to to see some. And in most cases, they're doing a way better job of it than I ever could.

My apathy has grown to where I mostly don't even care about me personally in this but I do feel sorry for the characters I no longer draw. But I feel even more sorry for my partner susi who would very much like to share the creative experience since it's one of the few things we can do at a distance. Unfortunately he's stuck dealing with the bitter used up dregs of the artist I used to be at the best of times and the immobile lump of lack of creative anything I am for the rest. There is still a small part of me that would like to turn back time to the days of possibility and aspiration which is where this journal is actually coming from but considering how difficult this was to type and how much of a struggle my last picture was just to get to a crappy sketch that I flubbed at the end just to be done with it, I really doubt such a thing is possible.

Thanks entirely to Susi I went to my first concert in almost 20 years this past Sunday evening (March 13th). He took me to see the triple bill of Delain, Sonata Arctica and Nightwish at the Rialto Theater in downtown Tucson, Arizona. Despite being a locally well-known music venue for decades, I'd never once been to the Rialto in the almost 25 years I've lived here. The place is bigger that it looks on the outside though there isn't much seating - just a balcony that's somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3rd of the auditorium and a few seats on the ground floor towards the back.

Susi and I were able to find a place to stand down near the stage perhaps the second or third "row" (perhaps tier would be a better term) of people back from the barricade that gave the security people a narrow corridor to walk in front of the stage during the performances. I've never been so close to the stage in any of the concerts I've been to so that was rather exciting in itself. For the most part, the crowd was well behaved save for one moshing incident and two crowd surfers during the middle act and one drunken woman early in the third. There were a few missteps and bumps but everyone was apologetic and understanding being everyone was so close in the standing room only area.

With the stage right speakers at roughly ten o'clock, I had little trouble hearing the music, though I did have trouble hearing people speak for the rest of the night. All of the bands were good and energetic. Delain surprised everyone with a surprise guest in the form of Marco Heitala, bass guitarist for the headliner Nightwish, who sang a duet with Delain's lead singer Charlotte Wessels. I have to thank Susi for being a fountain of knowledge about the bands, especially Nightwish. My biggest regret of the night was only recognizing having heard a couple of Nightwish's songs and not familiarizing myself with what music I could from all of the bands involved. I also regret not having better shoes and pestering Susi with repeated mentions and updates about how my stupid feet and knee I'd abused as the result of a misstep several years before. He seemed to have a great time despite that though and I enjoyed the music despite my lack of knowing what song was which and my whining feet. On the more plus side, I was able to get some decent pictures from my vantage point amidst the sea of smartphones and raised arms pointed at the stage, so I'll have those to aid my memories of the concert.

I had a few sketch pages to upload but have run into a 500 error numerous times while trying to submit. Guess I'll just upload them over on Inkbunny and Weasyl instead.

Some people make it really, really, really difficult to want to stay in this fur thing, especially as an artist.

I usually regard the end of one year and the beginning of another as an artificial distinction. One day feels a lot like the next and so does one year to another. As far as defining a span of time, January 1st to December 31st works as well as any and that collectively known as 2015 didn't really do anything to distinguish itself. It did have a few better moments, mostly in conjunction with movies or television shows.

For the most part, 2015 sucked but in no area more than artistic expression. It was the single worst year artistically I can ever remember with whole months passing by that I didn't so much as pick up a pencil. The ideas are still there. I assume the skill/ability to a certain extent, though I certainly don't see it when I do try to sketch. The will, the desire, whatever it's called that once motivated me to draw, or try to, just isn't there. If it comes down to staring at the wall or drawing something, staring at the wall wins out, though mostly I've been staring at the television.

I have several ideas or notions as to why this has come about but it hasn't helped to change the trend and part of me isn't even sure I want to. I felt pressure from others that wanted me to create for them a lot more 2015 than in any other year before it, so much so that it feels like a primary factor in breaking my motivation to draw. The part of me that holds out hope this is a temporary situation believes I'm giving myself a break from everything to allow my motivation to rebuild but I also harbor doubts that it's truly the case. I guess only the following year will show whatever becomes of my art as I certainly have no predictions on that score.

I think my inspriation is a bit out of sync with everything else. When I do have drawing ideas lately, they come at the most invconvenient times like when I'm driving to work or as I'm going to bed and am too tired to deal with them. True to form, I get an idea for dr_nowak 's Dinosaurs in Lingerie Day http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18381536/ with about half an hour to go before bed time and I've already pushed that back about an hour tonight because of the way my day has gone. So I have an idea but it probably won't be up until this weekend at the earliest if I can get it to turn out and I might have to resketch it again before being able to scan. That can be the trouble with working traditionally but at least I have the basic idea on paper already. It's just much too scribbly to scan and upload in its current state

For 25 years, I collected comics very regularly - mostly DC with some Marvel, Dark Horse and others in there. Due to financial concerns and not caring for the turn DC was taking with their New 52 marketing plan, I stopped buying for a couple of years. I returned to the comic store for the first time after finding out Marvel was publishing a series based on the Epcot Center purple dragon character, Figment, and picked up some other comics that had come out in the past couple of years that I found interesting. Once Figment was over, I stopped going to the comic store but would check the graphic novels section at Barnes and Noble where I was making frequent visits at the time.

Last week, I went back to B&N after not stopping in for a few months. A few things kinda piqued my interest but since Geoff Johns stopped working on Aquaman and Green Lantern, I haven't been interested in them, haven't care for the new Superman and have been confused by whatever's up with Batman when I try to peek through those books. I was curious about a series that should have been what I once considered a major event type story. I picked up the book and thumbed through the story only to put the book back down and walk away to check out the science fiction/fantasy section instead.

It might be pretty shallow of me but I tend to look first at a new comic book's art, especially when it's a pricey hardcover. If I'm going to spend the scratch publishers are asking for books these days, then I want to be able to understand the story visually first without reading a word. The art in this particular book (and a few others I looked at that day) seemed unfinished or too hastily pencilled and minimally inked, perhaps even the raw pencils scanned and "digitally inked" by messing with contrast and gamma settings. However it was done, the art felt like an incomprehensible muddle and without blobs of color, I couldn't tell who was who. It didn't help that the story supposedly involved similar characters from alternate timelines or other universes.

I understand that a lot of comic book publishers are trying new avenues to pull in new readers. I'm not against that at all but trying some of these new art styles isn't pulling me back into comics. For the record, I have been open to new and unique art styles before. Among the store I shopped at back in the day when Grand Morrison and Dave McKean's (artist on Vertigo's Sandman series) Arkham Asylum graphic novel first came out, I was seemingly the only one that appreciated the genius of the art in the story, though it took a few read throughs to understand all of what was going on. I was also one of the few to pick up the Batman: Digital Justice book back when art on computers was considered an oddity at best.

But some of the styles being published these days, particularly by Marvel, I find rather repulsive and stories I might otherwise look into, I don't because I just can't get past how nasty the art looks and how hard that makes it to read the story. It's as if, like cartoons these days, comic book publishers are out to win some kind of most atrocious abomination committed to print (or video or web) award. Sorry guys, especially DC whom I used to follow practically religiously, you're going to have to do better if you want my thirty-ish dollars for that book. Oh well, time to take my money and buy the Blacksad book currently missing from my collection instead. Now I know that'll have good artwork in it.

I haven't really had much to say or do around here except for faving the occasional picture. It feels like a lot has happened since then. The summer heat's finally cooled off in the desert southwest making more than sweating finally possible. I had to buy a new pair of glasses. The old ones broke in one too many places to repair with glue or tape as I had been doing for some time now. That seems to have started an avalanche or flood of other new things including some technological trinkets like a wireless keyboard & mouse combo and a new all-in-one with a scanner.

Between trying to read the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, watching last season's TV shows on home video to get caught up for this season, or cleaning the dust and other crap that's built up in the past few months, I haven't done much in the way of art and very little of it that's even scannable. Perhaps that will turn around now that I have a scanner. I guess only time will tell but for now, I do have one of the few sketches I have managed to start with.

I was out this afternoon buying Aladdin and San Andreas on blu-ray today when I found The Land Before Time checking Walmart on a whim. Finally I have a copy of the movie in its original widescreen and with 5.1 surround sound. Like a lot of older movies (for example Witness with Harrison Ford - released today but I couldn't find it despite going to several stores) that are released on blu-ray this one seems to have been buried in favor of newer films. I thought I might give anyone else who'd be interested in seeing Littlefoot and his friends in high-definition a heads up.

But not necessarily wiser as the old saying usually goes. I won't wonder the usual question of where the time went. While this past year has felt like it's passed almost too rapidly at times, there are others where it's felt agonizingly slow and that a century has passed since last August 26th. Yes, I definitely feel the older part, though to look as old as I feel most of the time, I'd probably have to resemble Yoda. To quote Mick Jagger and his fellow Rolling Stones, "what a drag it is getting old."